Tracking Downtown Toronto's Amazing Building Boom.

Tag Archives: Daniel Libeskind

The L Tower viewed from the west on Front Street near University Avenue

A construction crew pours concrete on the top level of The L Tower, 58 storeys above Yonge Street & The Esplanade. Click on the picture to view a larger image.

The upper levels appear to recede in this view of The L Tower ‘s north side

Looking up The L Tower’s northwest corner, from Yonge Street

Top-off time: The L Tower marks a construction milestone this afternoon with a topping-off ceremony that will include an exciting aerial performance by a 5-member troupe from Vancouver’s Aeriosa Dance Society on the skyscraper’s north side.

Word is that the building’s internationally renowned architect, Daniel Libeskind, will be in the city to participate in the celebrations. The L Tower is Libeskind’s second major building design in Toronto in the past decade; his previous landmark, the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal of the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), opened during the summer of 2007.

August 15 2012: West view of The L Tower, where construction crews were busy pouring concrete for the 55th floor of the Daniel Libeskind-designed skyscraper.

August 15 2012: The L Tower viewed from the south on Yonge Street below Harbour Street

Bending up: Construction of the 57-storey L Tower is close to topping off.

Yesterday, construction crews were pouring a concrete slab on The L Tower’s 55th floor, and today they are scheduled to pour concrete for walls and columns on levels 55 and 56. Meanwhile, cladding and laminated glass windows have been installed on much of the lower third of the tower.

A light layer of snow covers the sharply-angled east side of the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal on January 21 2012. Designed by “starchitect” Daniel Libeskind, the glass and aluminum-clad extension to the Royal Ontario Museum slices into the sky above Bloor Street. Below are several more wintertime views of the Crystal.

July 1 2011: Concrete shaping forms obscure an intriguing angled structure at the north end of The L Tower being built at Yonge Street & The Esplanade …

… but it’s fully visible to passersby on Yonge Street now that the forms have been removed (as seen in this photo from July 20 2011)

July 20 2011: A closer look at the odd structure on the lower north side of The L Tower. I’m speculating, but think it’s where the condo tower’s swimming pool, fitness centre and other amenities will be situated.

A new twist on Yonge: I’ve heard more people criticize the design of The L Tower Condominium than say they like it. Detractors I’ve spoken to have described artistic illustrations of the Daniel Libeskind-designed condo tower as “ridiculous,” “silly,” “corny,” “tacky” and “embarrassing.” I’m reserving my own judgment until the 57-storey tower is closer to completion, but so far I’m happy to see L Tower won’t be just another rectangular glass and steel box — at least, not at street level.

A unique six-storey “A” shape dominates the building’s southwest corner, while several more interesting angles recently were unveiled on a concrete structure at the north side of the tower’s podium — likely the future location of the condo pool and amenities area. Call The L Tower what you will but, if the lower-level features are any indication, I don’t think you’ll be able to call it “boring.”

Below are some photos showing both parts of the building. Pictures of earlier stages of construction can be viewed in my June 20 2011 post as well as my March 8 2011 post.

July 1 2011: The “A”-shaped southwest corner of The L Tower condo tower at the northeast corner of Yonge Street and The Esplanade

June 20 2011: L Tower construction dominates the west end of The Esplanade as the condo tower rises past the 5th floor on its way to 57 storeys

November 9 2010: Last fall, supply trucks had a bigger presence on The Esplanade than did construction of the L Tower condo tower itself

High Five: It doesn’t take long for new building construction to make a major impact on the look and feel of a downtown street, as the L Tower condominium highrise demonstrates. Just five months ago, anyone heading west on The Esplanade, near Scott Street, could see only a tall white construction crane, hoarding and supply trucks as they approached the building site. They had to get within less than half a block of Yonge Street before they could see any signs of the base being built for the 57-storey condo tower. It’s a completely different story now that L Tower is five floors high — and counting. The construction is visible from much farther east on the Esplanade, and L Tower already dominates the western end of the road at Yonge Street. It won’t be much longer before L Tower climbs above the Sony Centre next door and begins asserting its presence on the city skyline, too. Designed by New York-based Daniel Libeskind, L Tower is a project of Fernbrook Homes, Cityzen Real Estate Group and Castlepoint Realty Partners. Below is a series of photos comparing construction progress since February, followed by several more photos taken today. Further information about the condo project, along with pics I took during earlier stages of construction, is available in my March 8 2011 post.

Architectural rendering supplied by Exhibit Residences suggests how the condo tower will appear when viewed from Philosopher’s Walk south of Bloor Street

Culture, condos and controversy: During the past 10 years, major building projects for cultural institutions and condos have captured public attention and sparked considerable controversy and criticism on the Bloor Street block between Avenue Road and Bedford Road. Now, a stunning new highrise condo project, Exhibit Residences, is set to keep the busy east-west corridor in the public eye — and quite possibly stir up some more civic consternation in the process. Essentially four stacked cubes, three of which rotate slightly from the base, the 32-storey Exhibit Residences condo tower resembles a skyscraper version of a shimmering glass Rubic’s Cube. Though the condo project is still in the sales phase (its presentation centre has just opened in Yorkville), the tower’s distinctive design means Exhibit Residences is destined to turn heads on Bloor Street both during construction and long after afterwards. That’s no mean feat, considering the stiff architectural “competition” nearby, especially the Royal Ontario Museum’s Michael Lee-Chin Crystal directly across the street.

This particular block of Bloor has been a busy hub of building activity for a decade. But the growth, and some of the architectural design, has drawn mixed and sometimes highly-charged negative reaction from the public. Change started on the south side of the street when the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) launched its “Renaissance ROM renovation and expansion project” and hired internationally renowned architect Daniel Libeskind to design the Crystal — a building addition featuring spectacular new gallery space and a dramatic Bloor Street entrance. Evocative of giant ice crystals bursting through the brown brick façade of the original 1914 neo-Romanesque museum’s north wall, The Crystal celebrated its official opening during a massive street party on June 2 2007. Controversial from the start, the Crystal has become one of the city’s top “either love it or hate it” buildings, its design derided by many Toronto residents and visitors while lauded by others, including Conde Nast Traveler magazine, which named it one of “The new seven wonders of the world” in April 2008.

Meanwhile, right next door, the venerable Royal Conservatory of Music engaged in an extensive renovation and expansion project of its own, building its Telus Centre for Performance and Learning. Designed by Toronto’s Kuwabara, Payne, McKenna, Blumberg Architects, the Telus Centre gave the RCM two brand-new performance venues as well as new academic classroom and studio facilities. The academic wing opened in September 2008, while the grand 1,135-seat Koerner concert hall debuted to wide critical acclaim in 2009.

On the north side of Bloor, eyes have focussed on highrise condo construction rather than cultural icons. The first residential tower to rise on the block was another Kuwabara, Payne, McKenna, Blumberg-designed building — One Bedford, at the northeast corner of Bloor and Bedford Road. Like the ROM’s Crystal, the One Bedford project encountered controversy from the start. Many Annex residents initially opposed the 32-storey luxury condo tower in part because they believed its height and size were simply too big for the area. Now partially occupied after more than three years of construction, One Bedford seems, to me at least, to fit quite nicely into the neighbourhood; it will enhance the Annex gateway even more once work finishes on its exterior landscaping and Bedford Road courtyard entrance. In the middle of the block, the slender 19-storey Museum House on Bloor luxury condo highrise has topped off, and looks more complete each day as window installation approaches the penthouse level. By the time Museum House is finished construction and its exclusive, posh suites are fully occupied, preliminary construction work could be ready to start on Exhibit Residences.

A development project by the Bazis, Metropia and Plaza corporations, Exhibit will rise immediately to the east of Museum House, occupying several adjacent sites currently home to retail shops and restaurants, including a popular McDonald’s outlet. That particular property has a history of controversy, too. Once owned by the City of Toronto, the site was sold to McDonald’s for a bargain price of $3.38 million; the restaurant chain re-sold the land to Bazis International Inc., the developer of Exhibit. Details of the dispute over that contentious real estate transaction are outlined in a March 6 2008 story in the Toronto Star.

Designed by Rosario Varacalli of Toronto’s r. Varacalli Architect, Exhibit will cut a striking figure with its stacked cube shape, wrap-around windows and fritted-glass balcony panels. But the dramatic design isn’t the only intriguing element of the tower. Since it’s going up next to the Bloor subway line, the tower’s parking area must be built above-ground. Since the parking floors will be situated in Cube One (the bottom cube), residents in the lower tower section will enjoy “the unique convenience of above-ground parking on the same level as their suite,” the Exhibit Residences website notes. For some residents, it might actually be easier to leave the building by car than by foot! Although that’s bound to please some condo purchasers, some people are quite unhappy about the tower’s height; namely, heritage groups and activists who have been fighting to preserve vistas of the Ontario Legislature building at Queen’s Park to the south. They fear that, when seen from as far south as Queen Street, the Exhibit tower will appear to loom largely behind the Queen’s Park silhouette, spoiling northward views of the historic government building. Whether or not their fears are justified will become apparent in a couple of years once construction approaches the tower’s top cube.

Below are some photos of the Exhibit Residences location on Bloor, along with a tower rendering that appears on the project website.

April 1 2011: Exhibit Residences on Bloor condo tower development site

April 1 2011: The Exhibit Residences billboard was installed earlier this month after signs for the building’s prior retail occupants were removed.

April 1 2011: The McDonald’s property was owned by the City of Toronto until 2008, when it was sold to the restaurant company for $3.38 million.

April 1 2011: A view toward the Exhibit Residences development site from one block north on Prince Arthur Avenue in the East Annex. Exhibit will rise to the left of the Museum House on Bloor condo tower currently under construction.

February 12 2011: The controversial McDonald’s property and adjacent sites on which the Exhibit Residences tower will be built

November 1 2010: The main Royal Conservatory of Music building and its new Telus Centre on Bloor Street. The RCM sits next door to the Royal Ontario Museum, and directly across the street from the One Bedford condo tower.

January 19 2011: A view of Queen’s Park and towers on Bloor Street. One Bedford looms 32 storeys to the left of the historic Ontario Legislature building, while the construction crane indicates where Museum House on Bloor will reach 19 stories. Exhibit Residences will soar 32 stories in between. Heritage activists worry that tall towers planned for Bloor Street will ruin views of Queen’s Park.

From the Exhibit Residences website, an illustration depicting how the stacked cube condo tower will appear from Avenue Road, looking west along Bloor Street.

Construction crews at the south end of the L Tower site on March 7 2011

Construction is now higher than the hoarding along Yonge St.

Rebar pokes above hoarding along the tower’s Yonge Street perimeter

Raising L: For the past three years, hoarding has hidden most of the construction progress for the 57-storey L Tower condominium going up on Yonge Street, between Front Street and The Esplanade. But now that construction is climbing higher than the hoarding, passersby are finally getting a glimpse of the controversial Daniel Libeskind-designed skyscraper. The big question now is: will people like it? When the condo tower project was announced in 2005, its original L-shaped boot-shaped design drew considerable criticism and downright blunt derision. The funky-looking “foot” and “heel,” actually an eight-storey podium, was originally intended to be a $75 million cultural facility dedicated to arts and heritage awareness. Since the podium “toe” would have extended over the roof of the city-owned Sony Centre for the Performing Arts next door, some people thought the image of a “boot” stomping on the Sony Centre looked ridiculous. However, as architecture writer John Bentley Mays explained in an Oct. 29 2009 column in The Globe and Mail, that project hit the skids when the federal and provincial governments refused funding, and no corporate sponsors could be found to step in and foot the bill. With the cultural centre axed, the much-maligned podium was chopped from the design and the resulting tower, to use John Bentley Mays’ words, “is half a Libeskind, a shaft without a strong base.”

(I always thought the boot would have been an excellent site for a Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the famous neon signs saved from the long-defunct Sam the Record store at Yonge and Gould Streets. Some of you might recall that, around the time the L-Tower was unveiled, plans were announced to build a Canadian Music Hall of Fame in the Metropolis entertainment complex being built opposite Yonge-Dundas Square. Those plans ultimately got derailed, while Metropolis itself encountered turbulence in its efforts to obtain construction financing. The complex did eventually get built, and was officially called Toronto Life Square after the owners of the local magazine with the same title purchased naming rights. But Toronto Life ended its affiliation with the building several years ago and the complex, which is home to AMC cinemas, restaurants and retail stores, is now known simply as 10 Dundas East.)

But the L Tower’s problems continued beyond the cancellation of the podium museum project. Funds from the condo tower development were going to be used to revitalize the 50-year-old Sony Centre (originally called the O’Keefe Centre, and more recently the Hummingbird Centre.) The Sony Centre’s desperately-needed interior upgrades were supposed to begin in 2007; however, the renovation work got pushed to the fall of 2009. Part of the delay was due to difficulties in arranging financing during the global recession, while it also took time for the developer to resolve various outstanding issues with the city. In an Oct. 21 2009 story in the National Post, former Toronto Mayor David Miller is quoted as saying: “You’re building a very significant new condominium building above a heritage building. That’s complicated, the financing is complicated and the neighbourhood consultation was complicated… There were 27 public meetings.”

Construction eventually did commence on a revised tower design. As described by John Barber in an Oct. 3 2008 column in The Globe and Mail, “the revised plan…shows a plain, generous plaza on the [Sony] Centre’s Yonge Street frontage, where the boot was meant to come down. The handsome limestone cladding of the centre’s western elevation remains largely unmolested, as does it roof.” But while the Sony Centre lost a new cultural attraction, the condo tower gained a great new place for some of its facilities. “Such amenities as an indoor pool, fitness facilities, spa and a party room were moved above ground from basement level. The development also includes a landscaped outdoor plaza running north to Front St. that will be open to the public,” Paula Kulig wrote in a Nov. 7 2009 article in the Toronto Star.

Below are renderings of the L Tower’s original and revised designs, along with photos I’ve taken at the condo construction site over the past three years.

A rendering of the much-criticized original “boot” design for L Tower, left, compares with a rendering of the revised footless condo building, right

September 3 2008: Original development proposal sign for the L Tower condo tower, seen here outside the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts

September 3 2008: L Tower billboards on hoarding outside Sony Centre

The building under construction behind the Sony Centre is the London on the Esplanade condo complex, another project by the same developer as L Tower.

Sept 22 2008: CN Tower view of the L Tower site (circled)

April 25 2009: Original L Tower design rendering on a billboard on the hoarding along the Yonge Street side of the construction site

November 8 2009: L Tower condo tower marketing sign, featuring the revised building design, propped on a sidewalk on The Esplanade

March 9 2010: Demolition and early excavation work at the L Tower site

March 9 2010: Excavator digging at the south end of the site near The Esplanade

March 9 2010: North view of demolition and excavation activity

March 9 2010: Hoarding along the Yonge Street sidewalk next to the L Tower construction site; note that exterior work has finished on the nearby London on the Esplanade condo building behind the Sony Centre

November 2 2010: CN Tower view of cranes at the L Tower construction site

November 2 2010: Another CN Tower view of the L Tower construction site

November 9 2010: L Tower construction site viewed from The Esplanade

November 9 2010: L Tower foundation building progress viewed from Yonge St.

Snowy crystal: Until earlier this month, I had never seen the Royal Ontario Museum’s Michael Lee-Chin Crystal after a snowfall. Toronto didn’t get much snow last winter or in 2009, so whenever I was in the ROM’s vicinity, the Daniel Libeskind-designed Crystal looked the same as it does in summer. But I finally got to see a very wintry-looking Crystal when I passed the ROM on January 9. Here’s several pics from that afternoon.